Monday, 13 September 2010

Germany 1994

Germany was represented by three-member girl group MeKaDo, with the song Wir geben 'ne Party, at the 1994 Eurovision Song Contest, which took place on May 30 in Dublin. As in 1993, the German entry was chosen internally. The song was composed by Ralph Siegel and Bernd Meinunger.

The group's name came from the girls' first names and consisted of Melanie Bender, Kati Karney and Dorkas Kiefer. Dorkas had previously taken part as a solo singer in the German national final in 1989.

On the night of the final MeKaDo performed 14th in the running order. The group had put together a complex stage routine which reportedly caused them problems in rehearsals, but on the night they managed to get it right. Although Eurovision rules at the time required the song to be sung in German, lyricist Meinunger admitted that he had specifically written lyrics with a very English sound, as well as including several brief phrases actually in English (which the rules allowed). Wir geben 'ne Party stood out as a fun, uptempo song in a contest very heavily dominated by ballads, and at the close of voting had received 128 points (including maximum 12s from Hungary and Romania), placing Germany third of the 25 entries, the country's first top 5 finish since 1987.